Frank E Gibbard Posted October 25, 2010 Share Posted October 25, 2010 (edited) Many a mickle makes a muckle, Such Scots phrases may make one chuckle. It might indeed be a braw bricht moonlicht nicht, What fickle pettyfogging lickspittle can contradict? Oop North they'll say where there's muck there's brass, Slipping in muck'll leave you sat upon your raw sore arse! Is our luckless world that much better for the downing of the sickle? The now sick capatalistic mess has us all up to our chins in such a pickle! Reiterate: many a mickle makes a muckle, A teet of meaningless words for me is sweet to suckle. As understanding the news induces only what the fucks! Retreat to an ickle mockularity inoculates me from that which sucks. When too uptight with life's constraints it makes yessense to unbuckle; I reach for a belt of nonsensical unrestraint while mired right up to the knuckle! (ickle means little) Last edited by Frank E Gibbard Edited October 25, 2010 by Frank E Gibbard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dedalus Posted October 26, 2010 Share Posted October 26, 2010 Nice one, Frank! Does "yessence" counterbalance "nonsense"? I like the essence of the thought ... Quote Drown your sorrows in drink, by all means, but the real sorrows can swim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyv Posted October 27, 2010 Share Posted October 27, 2010 Though they're not, to me such dialects read like foreign languages, Frank. My sister lived in England for a while, and she reported that her American accent and mannerisms made her somewhat of an amusement to many people there. I wonder if I could get used to the place? Perhaps I could even get to like it ... Tony :) Quote Here is a link to an index of my works on this site: tonyv's Member Archive topic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waxwings Posted October 27, 2010 Share Posted October 27, 2010 (edited) Wish I knew what some (not all) of those words mean. If you read Aexander McCall-Smith you better have a ? dictionary / of Scotish terms mixed in w/standard English. I can guess many but hardly all. A mickle bravo to ye..!? Edited October 31, 2010 by waxwings Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldenlangur Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 Hi Frank, Rich in sonority and word play. How well you pace the turns in the local patois so that the reader is treated to range of accents and turn of phrases: I love the sounds in this: Oop North they'll say where there's muck there's brass, Slipping in muck'll leave you sat upon your raw sore arse! Enjoyed this Ickle Nonsense very much. Quote goldenlangur Even a single enemy is too many and a thousand friends too few - Bhutanese saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dedalus Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 I grew up with this stuff (or near enough to it) so it's all more or less comprehensible. Where I really had difficulty with versions of English was when I first went to Texas: it took about 2-3 weeks to figure out what people were saying, and telephone conversations were the worst! Face-to-face you can search for clues in facial expressions and body language, not to mention when they whip out a gun and wave it at you ... waving is not so bad, pointing is serious bad news. Then you kind of wish you were back on the telephone. Boston, New York and the East Coast in general weren't so difficult but the South took some getting used to, not just the local expressions (you get that everywhere) but the extended vowels. Haar yew -- Ah'm jess fahn is on the easy end of the scale but when you get three separate sounds on a single vowel things start to get a little, well, hey-ya-ree. Who am I to be talking? Dublin! D'fehyonnabeow? Trans: lit. (What) the feck (are) you on about? (i.e. Kindly explain) Akahssanoyanloives -- a cat has nine lives. Can we do some more of this? Phonetic transcriptions of local speech in a poem for non-natives to scratch their heads over? No fair using special vocabulary, just the way English sounds from the mouths of your neighbours. In fact, try this sentence which has a load of vowels in it (I think it's the vowels that distinguish dialects more than anything): She was a lovely girl and when she stood up a sigh went through all the people. To get the ball rolling: Sheezaloovlygerrl ... anwhenshee ... stootoop ... a soigh went true awl deh peeyapl. OK, OK, I'm sure all you serious people (peeyapl) have better things to do! Give it a twirl. All the best, Brendan (Brennt'n .. inner city it's a simple Brenno: all the guys are xxx-O. Miko, Stevo, Franko. Anto, Charlo, Davo, etc. The girls -- gerrls -- are usually an xxx-ie: Annie, Joanie, Lizzie, Francie, Bernie, and so on. Then you have the ...aleens: Miko's son would be Mickaleen and Cathy's daughter would be -- work it out!) Quote Drown your sorrows in drink, by all means, but the real sorrows can swim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tinker Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 This is great fun to read Frank although of course I only understood about half of it. But honestly the sounds and the connotation of the words around those funny words helped me get through this well enough to get the gist and thoroughly enjoy the trip. Here in Cali we have surfer lingo, ebonics, a little Valley Girl and Spanglish thrown into the mix but other than that we speak English without a noticable accent. ~~Tink Quote ~~ © ~~ Poems by Judi Van Gorder ~~ For permission to use this work you can write to Tinker1111@icloud.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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